Compose His Mind
Marshall had less than 24 hours to come up with a plan. He decided to sneak away from the interruptions at First Army headquarters and take a walk along the Marne Rhine Canal that ran through Ligny en Barrois. He recalled the next hour as “the most trying mental ordeal experienced by me during the war.” He managed to compose his mind by sitting in silence beside “one of the typical old French fishermen who forever lined the banks of canals and apparently never get a bite.”
Still, without a solution, he returned to his office, spread a map out on a table, and reviewed the list of divisions to be engaged to the offensive. Inventing an adage, “The only way to begin is to commence,” he began dictating.
Inside of an hour he had drafted a preliminary plan for the movement of First Army divisions, guns, and equipment to the Meuse Argonne assembly points, while at the same time providing for the defence of the ground gained at Saint Mihiel.
George Marshall - Defender of the Republic
- David L. Roll
George Marshall was a 37 year old American First World War Army staff officer, tasked with planning the biggest logistical undertaking in the history of the U.S. Army, before or since. to relieve 220,000 troops of the French Second Army.
What does he do amidst his mental anguish?
Sneaks away for half an hour to sit and watch a fisherman.